Why Safety One Does NOT Sell Gear

11 Mar Why Safety One Does NOT Sell Gear

Selling Gear? No Thanks.

Here at Safety One Training, we are a training company. This is what we do. We train our students in the latest techniques for tower climbing safety & rescue. We train SPRAT. We train confined space, rigging & hoisting, wood pool and bucket truck safety. We train on winter survival, snowcat operations, snowmobile and ATV/UTV safety as well. But we don’t sell equipment, gear or any fall protection merchandise whatsoever. The only exception is a custom winter survival kit because it seemed no one in the market offered one we wanted to recommend. Some ask why we don’t sell gear? I have often answered simply we do not want to be an “infomercial”, and our clients value our objectivity. They know we do not recommend a specific item because of the profit margin involved or the commission received. Our students trust our instructors to give them an unbiased opinion. This topic came up in a LinkedIn conversation recently, and this quote from Scott Rousseau at Web Devices says it all:

A good instructor takes a couple minutes to read the class, and focus on the students needs. Another very important fact that you mentioned is not to try to sell products to a captive audience. This, in my opinion, is the most unethical thing an instructor can do, and it should not be a sales pitch. Sad, that many of the instructors out there spend 5 days selling fall protection rather than 2 days transferring the necessary knowledge required to save lives from falls. Never put down your competition, and always have a variety of brands of equipment in your class. Any well taught student will be able to choose the equipment that best suits the needs of those who perform the work at heights. It is unfortunate that I have to spend time "un-teaching" what a student has been told in another class, and proving that the theory taught in another class was wrong, and simply a waste of time and money. If your instructor is a salesman when not teaching, find another class. Otherwise, you are paying to have someone sell you something, and a 5 day sales call is 39 hours to much.